Conversation Caféhttp://www.conversationcafe.org
Conversations that Matter!Tue, 22 May 2018 19:18:06 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.3NCDD Podcast Episode 2 about Conversation Caféhttp://www.conversationcafe.org/ncdd-podcast-episode-2-about-conversation-cafe/
http://www.conversationcafe.org/ncdd-podcast-episode-2-about-conversation-cafe/#respondFri, 31 Mar 2017 18:35:40 +0000http://www.conversationcafe.org/?p=493Via the NCDD blog: NCDD’s second podcast episode is now live on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Google Play! It features the story of Conversation Café as told by three stewards of this process: co-creator Susan Partnow, past steward Jacquelyn Pogue, and NCDD Resource Curator Keiva Hummel, who plays a key role in helping NCDD serve as the steward of the Conversation Café (CC) process.

The first series of episodes in the NCDD Podcast were recorded at the NCDD 2016 Conference, where we asked leaders and practitioners from the D&D field to share their stories and ideas, as well as discuss opportunities and challenges in our audio room. These episodes are being released over the next several weeks as we continue our conversation from the conference about #BridgingOurDivides. Additional episodes will be produced on an on-going basis.

In this episode, Keiva asks Susan and Jacquelyn to share the story of Conversation Café’s inception and history over the past fifteen years. They explain how this elegantly simple process works, talk about how it has been utilized, and their hopes and advice for NCDD as the recent steward.

What experiences have you had with Conversation Café? Or, what more would you like to learn about it? What opportunities do you see for Conversation Café in your community or in our nation generally?

Again, our thanks to Ryan Spenser for recording and editing these podcast episodes, to Barb Simonetti for her financial support of this initial series, and to everyone who participated in the episode recording sessions at the conference! Please continue to tune in and share the podcast with your networks!

NCDD was pleased to host a training webinar for those wanting to learn to host the Conversation Café (CC) process earlier this week, but we were even more pleased by the great turnout we had! We were joined by 45 participants, who spent 90 minutes learning about the ins and outs of hosting Conversation Cafés from Susan Partnow, one of the CC co-founders. It was a great training!

If you missed the training, don’t worry – we recorded the whole thing! You can find the whole training webinar recording by clicking here. For additional tips, we also encourage you to click here to read the chat transcript from the call, where there were a number of resources, links, and answers to questions shared.

With this new round of trained hosts, we’re excited to see the Conversation Café community continue to grow! We encourage everyone to check out the Conversation Café website at www.conversationcafe.org, especially if you are looking for more resources. We recommend checking out the “Resources for Hosts” page here and printing out some of the CC how-to cards here to help you be as prepared as possible to host your first Café.

Last week, NCDD hosted another one of our Confab Call events featuring the co-founders of Conversation Café (CC), Susan Partnow and Vicki Robin. The call featured a history of the CC process, reflections from the experiences of CC hosts, and a brief tour of the new CC website at www.conversationcafe.org.

If you missed this engaging discussion, don’t worry. You can still listen in on what the call was like by finding the recording at this link.

There is also a great next step that came out of this call that we want to make sure our members hear about. We had so much interest from folks wanting to learn to use the CC process that co-founder Susan Partnow offered to host a free Conversation Café Host Training to start the new year!

So NCDD and Susan will be hosting 90-minute CC training webinar on Tuesday, January 3rd at 12pm Eastern/9am Pacific with much appreciation to Susan for making this training available before she takes her sabbatical. We encourage everyone who would like to host Conversation Cafés or just wants to learn more about the process to register today take advantage of this opportunity to learn how to host Conversation Cafés!

This upcoming training call will be the perfect opportunity to get personalized support in hosting Conversation Cafés. Whether you’re considering using the process for the first time or want to brush up on it before hosting a new conversation, we encourage all of our NCDD members with an interest in the CC process to register now to participate in this CC host training!

The CC process is an accessible tool for hosting needed conversations on difficult issues in our communities, and we are excited to see more people getting trained to use it. We look forward to having many of you join us on January 3rd for the event!

]]>http://www.conversationcafe.org/join-conversation-cafe-host-training-call-on-jan-3rd/feed/0New Conversation Café Wallet Cardshttp://www.conversationcafe.org/cc-wallet-cards/
http://www.conversationcafe.org/cc-wallet-cards/#commentsSun, 18 Dec 2016 22:04:42 +0000http://www.conversationcafe.org/?p=434One of our favorite things about Conversation Café is its simplicity. The fact that the CC agreements and process can fit on a folded business card never ceases to amaze!

We just updated the CC “wallet cards” and created new documents that allow you to print and cut out your own cards.

Printing them out on card stock or cover stock is best, and cutting them out with a paper cutter works well if you have one!

We also got a whole bunch of them printed, and we’re happy to mail them out to those of you who need them in bulk. Email Sandy Heierbacher at sandy@ncdd.org to discuss the details.

]]>http://www.conversationcafe.org/cc-wallet-cards/feed/2Join the NCDD Confab on Conversation Café, 12/19!http://www.conversationcafe.org/join-the-ncdd-confab-on-conversation-cafe-1219/
http://www.conversationcafe.org/join-the-ncdd-confab-on-conversation-cafe-1219/#respondSun, 11 Dec 2016 19:16:20 +0000http://www.conversationcafe.org/?p=422The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) is excited to announce our next NCDD Confab Call will be featuring the co-creators of Conversation Café! Join the FREE Confab on Monday, December 19th from 1-2pm Eastern/10-11am Pacific for this one-hour call where we will learn more about this simple but powerful dialogue tool from the people who made it.

This Confab will be an opportunity to learn all about the Conversation Café (CC) process, connect with people already doing Cafés, understand the basics of being a host, and share with NCDD how we can be of support to the CC network. Conversation Café is supported by a bank of resources for conversations and a wide network of CC hosts and groups, many of whom will be on the call. Register today to be part of the discussion!

The Confab will feature insights from NCDD supporting members Susan Partnow and Vicki Robin, two of the three original co-creators of the process. They will share with us how CC was started, their experience developing the process, and a even run a miniature host training!

Conversation Cafés are open, hosted conversations held in public spaces – not just in cafés! The CC process is elegantly simple – it’s nimble, accessible, and easy enough to be used very quickly by many people. As a process that moves participants from “small talk to big conversation,” our vision for CC, in part, is that it will be used to help communities address national and local crises that call for the immediate, real dialogue which we need in so many
ways today. We invite you to join this call to find out more about how you can start using CC today!

NCDD recently became the steward of the Conversation Café process because we are particularly well equipped to help new CC groups use other forms of dialogue and deliberation when the time is right, and we know that it’s a wonderful model for dialogue that can and should be widely adopted across the U.S. and the globe. NCDD would love to see more people in more places joining the CC network and engaging regularly in conversations that matter – register today to find out how you can be involved!

About NCDD’s Confab Calls…

NCDD’s Confab Calls are opportunities for members (and potential members) of NCDD to talk with and hear from innovators in our field about the work they’re doing and to connect with fellow members around shared interests. Membership in NCDD is encouraged but not required for participation. Confabs are free and open to all. Register today if you’d like to join us!

]]>http://www.conversationcafe.org/join-the-ncdd-confab-on-conversation-cafe-1219/feed/0NCDD Stewardship for Conversation Caféhttp://www.conversationcafe.org/ncdd-stewardship-for-conversation-cafe/
http://www.conversationcafe.org/ncdd-stewardship-for-conversation-cafe/#respondTue, 27 Sep 2016 16:50:05 +0000http://www.conversationcafe.org/?p=403In case you haven’t heard, the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) has become the new steward of Conversation Café (CC). We are in the process of reconnecting with the CC network and figuring out how we can best support and grow this important community. The CC website has also undergone a revamp thanks to NCDD’s Andy Fluke, and we hope you like the new look!

NCDD’s Sandy Heierbacher and Keiva Hummel are spearheading this effort, so feel free to contact either of us if you have questions or want to help out!

We’ve created a new one-way announcement list to share news about Conversation Café happenings once in a while (no more than monthly). We encourage all of you to subscribe to that list if you have some interest in CC’s by sending a blank email to conversation-cafe-subscribe-request@lists.ncdd.org.

If you’re a Conversation Cafe host or promoter (or want to be), also consider joining the new Cafe-Community listserv – a discussion list we’ve modeled after the NCDD Discussion list to encourage CC leaders to network, share information, and discuss key issues facing the CC community. To join that list, send a blank email to cafe-community-subscribe-request@lists.ncdd.org.

Why does NCDD feels it’s important to support Conversation Café?

Back in March 2014, we had an amazing conversation with the D&D community on the NCDD blog about whether we should play this role, and though there were many eloquent arguments both for and against NCDD becoming the new stewards for the CC method, we decided in the end that it was important to help this elegantly simple approach survive and thrive – and we hope you can support our decision!

We think Conversation Café is a wonderful model for dialogue that can and should be widely adopted across the U.S. and the globe. Our vision for Conversation Café, in part, is that it be used to help communities address national and local crises that call for immediate dialogue.

We think CCs are nimble, accessible, and elegantly simple enough to be used very quickly by many people, and NCDD is particularly well equipped to help new CC groups use other forms of dialogue and deliberation when the time is right.

We also just want to see more people, in more places, engaging regularly in conversations that matter, and feel that Conversation Café is uniquely suited to helping make this happen.

In addition to subscribing to the announcement list or discussion list mentioned above, we strongly encourage any of you who have hosted CCs to take a minute and complete the quick form at www.conversationcafe.org/main-survey to tell us a little about your work and interests. Our main interest right now is to learn about what is currently (and has been) going on in the Conversation Café community, and this would help us a great deal!

]]>http://www.conversationcafe.org/ncdd-stewardship-for-conversation-cafe/feed/0Calling on Hosts Everywhere!http://www.conversationcafe.org/calling-on-hosts-everywhere/
http://www.conversationcafe.org/calling-on-hosts-everywhere/#respondThu, 25 Jun 2015 15:54:35 +0000http://www.conversationcafe.org/?p=262With the update of the Conversation Café website comes new opportunities to engage the rest of the world using our great process. Transferring the old site to a website based on an easy to edit blogging tool, we now have the tools to expand our offerings and more easily share stories and events with the public.

But that can’t be done without you!

As this website continues to evolve, we will be adding all sorts of ways for you to share your work, but in the meantime the staff behind this site would love to connect with the hosts that are on the ground encouraging these great conversations and get their input on what this website should be.

]]>http://www.conversationcafe.org/calling-on-hosts-everywhere/feed/0Welcome to the New Conversation Café Website!http://www.conversationcafe.org/welcome-to-the-new-conversation-cafe-website/
http://www.conversationcafe.org/welcome-to-the-new-conversation-cafe-website/#commentsWed, 24 Jun 2015 18:08:08 +0000http://www.conversationcafe.org/?p=207Things might be looking a little different around here! That’s because, as of June 23, 2015, the Conversation Café website has a new host and a new supporter — the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation! The website update is being handled by NCDD, so if you have any questions please send them to hq@ncdd.org.
]]>http://www.conversationcafe.org/welcome-to-the-new-conversation-cafe-website/feed/5Thoughts on Hostinghttp://www.conversationcafe.org/thoughts-on-hosting/
http://www.conversationcafe.org/thoughts-on-hosting/#commentsMon, 02 Feb 2015 23:39:14 +0000http://www.conversationcafe.org.php54-2.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/?p=110So what is our most important role as host? It is not to flawlessly facilitate a successful conversation. Rather, it is to hold the space—and be part of the space—of community/safety/love. We are stewards; we are providing a comfortable environment for people to explore deeply enough to find out what they really think and feel about the topic. Part of this safety is that WE are also open—disclosing our own thoughts and feelings. We are part of the process. We honor the folks who come to these conversations; we honor the risk they may be taking in talking with strangers about the often confusing and complex questions of our times. .

Hosting is simple—like breathing is simple. It can be as minimal as showing up, introducing the process and keeping time. Yet the practice of hosting can be very profound. It is a dynamic, honest, humble process of staying present to your own reality while drinking in the reality of everyone else at the table. It contributes to the reweaving of the web of community and builds the critical thinking, social engagement and conviviality that is the best of what human society has always been and the essence of what we intend to be in the future.

]]>http://www.conversationcafe.org/thoughts-on-hosting/feed/3Our Principleshttp://www.conversationcafe.org/our-principles/
Mon, 02 Feb 2015 23:37:03 +0000http://www.conversationcafe.org.php54-2.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/?p=90Inclusivity: Create an inviting climate in which everyone is inspired to speak and listen, and where diverse perspectives may emerge.

One host at least – everyone able to host at best: Ensure that at least one host is present at each Conversation Café gathering – ideally every table has a host.

Open access: Anyone may participate who follows the “rules” (Process, Agreements and Principles). Conversation Cafés are open to all, without charge.

During Conversation Cafés (between the opening and closing rounds) and when working with others to support and grow the initiative, we commit to:

What is said cannot be owned by anyone: Clarify that what is said in the Conversation Café must be considered to be in the public domain. No one at the table nor outside the conversation can claim exclusive ownership of the ideas that emerge.

Commercial-free [and agenda-free] zones: No one may attend primarily to promote or impose a particular agenda, point of view, outcome, solution or cause – or market a product, service or event.
No committees: There will be no political networking, committee formation or action groups.

Continuing to push our edges: Encourage people to become hosts in a wide variety of settings.

Empowering hosts: Provide clear information to all hosts and participants about the mechanics of hosting a Conversation Cafés and the open, inquisitive spirit of hosting.

Maintaining integrity and fidelity: Any event calling itself a Conversation Café must abide by the Conversation Café “Process and Agreements” and principles. Borrowing from or altering these is encouraged, but such adaptations should not be called Conversation Cafés.